OLD DUDES TO THE RESCUE!

Sony Music recently announced it will begin to make vinyl records again in Japan for the first time in three decades, following up the release of a new turntable last year.

As someone who has collected vinyl record albums for nearly five decades, I find the move interesting. I was a little surprised to learn that the market is returning to vinyl in a big way. The Guardian recently reported that sales of vinyl in the U.K. suddenly exceeded sales of digital downloads. Vinyl sales have shown eight consecutive years of growth. These numbers explain, then, Sony's interest in investing in the future (!) of vinyl.

Experts commenting on the trend point to a desire by consumers to be able to purchase something physical to own. Music lovers are drawn by the cover art, lyrics, and liner notes which "give them a more tangible sense of connection to the music they love."

Cover art often drew me to new music. As a teenager I discovered Wishbone Ash by purchasing There's The Rub when it came out because I thought the cover was quirky and cool. The music was solid, and I went back for more. When I spotted Argus, that was it. Now there's a cool cover.

Long-play albums often offer other attractions. I recently picked up John Prine's first album, pictured above, for a buck at a community yard sale in Kemptville. On the back cover Prine had inscribed it in ballpoint pen to "Ric and Bonnie from a Grateful Guest 20/8/74." He drew a peace flower and signed it. Now who wouldn't like to have something like that in their collection?

The best part of the whole thing, though, is the fact that Sony Music is reaching out for expertise to achieve the best possible sound for their new pressings. What does that mean? "Cutting is a delicate process, with the quality of sound affected by the depth and angle of the grooves ... and Sony is scrambling to bring in old record engineers to pass on their knowledge."

There must be a feeling of quiet triumph in the minds of the old guys who suddenly find themselves wanted again. Their sound engineering skills are once again a valuable commodity. Who woulda thunk it?

Rock on, Old Dudes! Show the people how it's done!!

It's enough to blow your mind, man.

SORROW LAKE is reviewed by MYSTERY PEOPLE

The United Kingdom is a hotbed for crime fiction these days. The genre receives very good coverage from the Guardian and Telegraph newspapers, and Stirling hosts the well-attended Bloody Scotland conference each year. Numerous bloggers feature crime fiction news and reviews, and one of the best and most-respected of these is MYSTERY PEOPLE.

This blog is run by Lizzie Hayes, who was a founder of the group Mystery Women in 1997. When this group closed down, Ms. Hayes founded Mystery People in 2012. As a lover of crime fiction, she has been a tireless supporter of the genre. She maintains two blogs, Mystery People and Promoting Crime Fiction.

I'm pleased that SORROW LAKE has been reviewed for Ms. Hayes by Marsali Taylor. She found it to be "an enjoyable and detailed p[olice] p[rocedural] set in rural Canada" with "an interesting set of characters.... The plot moved at a good speed, and the final twist was unexpected, but fairly clued."

Thanks to Ms. Hayes and Ms. Taylor for reviewing the novel. I'm very happy to see it receive positive attention in the UK.


You can read the full review on Promoting Crime Fiction here. 

Prize-Winning Books More Apt to Receive Negative Reader Reviews

As reported in The Guardian, a study undertaken by two academics indicates that books winning such prestigious prizes as the Booker or National Book Award are more apt to receive negative reader reviews after the fact. The study is based on an analysis of almost 39,000 Goodreads reviews.

The authors of the study believe this phenomenon is the result of a mismatch between reader and novel: readers assume that a book is "good" because it has won an award, but what is "good" depends largely on individual taste. If the prize-winning book is not to a reader's taste, s/he may be disappointed, thus giving it a negative review.


For the full text of The Guardian article, please see http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/21/literary-prizes-make-books-less-popular-booker.

I'm not really surprised by these findings because if you look at random at Goodreads and Amazon reviews of novels generally considered to be literary classics, you'll find the same trend towards negativity if the book does not accommodate the reader's taste. (For my earlier post on this subject, please click here.)

Can a Computer Algorithm Predict the Success of Books?

The Guardian reports that an assistant professor at Stony Brook University in New York claims to have created an algorithm that uses a quantitative approach to predict literary success with an accuracy rate of 84 per cent. The researchers used Project Gutenberg to identify works (poetry was also included); analyzed the literary style of the first one thousand lines of each work; and correlated the results with the number of downloads the title had received. They then identified the stylistic elements in the successful writings. They also applied their analysis to titles outside the Gutenberg database, such as works by Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Philip Roth, and Dan Brown, and were able to predict successful writings at a rate of 70 per cent. (Their system was apparently confused by Hemingway's minimalist style because the algorithm depends on a "high-level syntactic structure".)

In terms of their findings, the less successful books rely on verbs that are "explicitly descriptive of actions and emotions", whereas more successful books contain straightforward verbs such as "say". The less successful books also contain a higher percentage of verbs, adverbs, and foreign words; topical words that are almost clichés; and extreme and negative words.

The study also found that there is an inverse relation between "success" as defined by the attainment of literary awards and the "readability" of a work.
 

For the full text of the article from The Guardian, please click here.

If you're interested in reading the academic paper itself, please click here.